Weekly Reflection: on Goals, What I'm Seeing, Hearing, Tasting and Reading
Thai diner, Park Slope Food Coop, Earnings at $0
Heylo! I’m playing with a new format where I do a beefier post Wednesday and Friday use for reflection, goal-checkins, and link roundups of what I’m watching, reading, smelling, tasting and thinking about this week. A bit of a diary entry. The most vulnerable part for me is talking about my goals, read more below.
The Weekly Reflection🪞
This week felt weird. Oh yeah, Trump is president. Again. It’s been extremely cold in NYC—we even got snow.
I re-joined the Park Slope Food Coop (yes, for the drama) and worked a checkout shift. I’m currently in debt and doing 3 makeup shifts. Anyone here a member?
Had lunch at Thai Diner (I always order the chicken banana blossom salad) with Alex Segreti. Returned a late library book, 2 or 3 Things I Know For Sure by Dorothy Allison. FYI: NYPL still has late fees, and I owe at least $11 for this.
Marina is off to Armenia for her papa’s 40-day ceremony, an Armenian memorial tradition. Another week without Marine.
I sent in my Work-Pager website template into the Notion Creator platform. Waiting on approvals. Better than a resume, cooler than LinkedIn. And it’s FREE! I’m excited to be collaborating with a very cool Substack creator to promote Work-Pager. Stay tuned!
Goal Check-in
A quick note on goals: This is the first time in my life I’ve taken them seriously. I’ve never been someone with big ambitions or long-term plans—I floated through life with the (loose) motto, “a life without plans.”
Startup culture introduced me to goal-setting, which was intimidating at first, but over time I’ve made peace with it—maybe even become friends with the system.
Now, I use this notebook to stay on track, starting with an overall yearly goal, which I break down into monthly and weekly steps. I also use GPT a lot to help me plan tasks and stay focused on achieving these goals.
Earnings: $0 (January goal: $1000). Is it weird to talk money here? Maybe. But for now, I’m at $0 and looking for a new role this year. Starting from scratch.
New Subscribers: +82 (shoutout to Emma at Digital Fruits for recommending Work Unseen!). Welcome, Fruity Divas! (January goal: +200 subs.)
The Five Senses Rundown
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Paris, Texas
(1984) dir. Wim Wenders. All about the colors and gentle story.
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WGBO Jazz
Radio station out of Newark, NJ. Relaxing, sophistication.
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Magic Cactus
I’m basically off-booze, this is my new drink. “2MG of THC to take the edge off, 4MG of CBG to add uplift & clarity, & 6MG of CBD to calm the mind” Idk if it’s good for me, but now I’m having two every night. Please comment if you have more information about what I’m consuming.
🤲🏼
Aquaphor
Dry skin solutions. I buy this stuff in multiple sizes, place in multiple locations, bedside, tote bag, coffee table, bathroom, everywhere.
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Celine - Parade
When Marina flies to Armenia, the layover is usually in Paris. That’s where she discovered Parade and brought it back for me to obsess over.
What I’m Reading This Week:
Short story: The Willows by Algernon Blackwood - if you want to actually feel like you’re inside a Romanian bog on the Danube River, well, It haunts.
The only magazine I get sent to my home is New York Magazine. It’s fun. I read 2 articles. The one on Neil Gaiman (yikes) and How Far Would You Go to Make a Friend? which I reference in my Wednesday sub.
All Fours by Miranda July and adored it. Finally someone freaky, in mid-life who talks about the reality of the situation. Also in the middle of The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith.
Keep thinking about the Matilda Lucy’s newsletter Broken Growth advice given in the Power of Subtraction “What if the best growth strategy this year is subtraction”. Thinking about this as I narrowed down my content output to Substack and LinkedIn and feel the saner for it. Last year I quit Instagram -
with a following of 136K.Next week, I’m writing about the steps I took to cut back on doom-scrolling (and how you can do the same), along with my thoughts on the future of social media content. Thanks to Ines on in my notes comments who inspired this post.
Is there something you want to ask me? AMA.
Moving on from your IG with that many followers was such a power move 🤝